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Friday, January 16, 2015

Life After Ashes - an Anthology, and a Helping Hand

Urgent announcement today.

A sad note, and a happy one. I'm a contributing author for an anthology entitled "Life After Ashes". Sad, because this Tilt campaign needs to happen for a fellow veteran and his devastated family, and yet I'm happy to be able to something, anything, to help.

So can you.

A press release:

BOOK CREATED TO HELP FAMILY OF A NAVY VET AFTER A FIRE

(16 January 2015 – DAYTON, OHIO – ) An award-winning lineup of over fifty authors are collecting stories to help raise money to help the family of a Navy veteran and fellow author recover after a home-destroying fire. The anthology, entitled Life After Ashes will only be available as a reward to those donating money through a crowdfunding campaign to aid the family before 2 February 2015.

Earlier this month the home of writer, Navy veteran, and single father Greg Campbell burned down. Campbell and his two children, Isaac and Scarlett, lost everything, including childhood mementos, keepsakes and photos of his recently deceased wife, and family pets. To help the family recover, Tia Fix Rumbaugh, Isaac’s stepmother, started a crowdfunding campaign to help the family get back on their feet.

“I started the crowdfunder in a panic,” Rumbaugh said. “My stepson’s house had burned. They were homeless, with only the clothes on their back, and this after my stepson had lost his mother de facto when his Aunt Pam died unexpectedly.”

The anthology started to take shape when author and publisher Steven Saus first offered digital copies of his own books as rewards for backers. “I’d just met Isaac, one of the children who lost their home. Not only is his father an author, but Isaac is an aspiring writer himself and an avid reader. It just seemed natural. Then when other authors asked if they could contribute stories as backer rewards, I knew we had the start of something special.”

Rumbaugh says that this has a great impact for the family. “This anthology isn’t just about raising funds to help the Campbell’s and give people an amazing read from award-winning authors - it’s a cause, it’s a quest, it’s an idea turned into physical hope; hope for Greg, hope for Isaac, hope for Scarlett. Life isn’t all about loss. Life can raise up from the ashes.”

Life After Ashes will have over fifty authors, including Nisi Shawl, Lucy A. Snyder, Gary Braunbeck, Tobias Buckell, Laura Resnick, and many more. It will be available in ePub, Kindle, and PDF formats to anyone who contributes $25 or more to the crowdfunding campaign raising money for the family.